Heirloom
by Mild Guy
Summary: Time is the great universal enemy, none escape its indignities. Samus is called to one last mission in the hopes of taking back a way of life the galaxy no longer accepts. With the old battles long gone, what’s left for Aran to finish?
1. Appeal

Note on Distribution: Please do not copy and distribute this fan fiction without my consent.

Note on Copyright: I do not own the Metroid brand, related names, ideas, and intellectual property. I am not making a profit off of this work of fiction.

Rated T for violence, gore, and some bad language.

**Heirloom.**

By Mild Guy.

**One.**

Samus greeted the most important day of the last thirty years of her life the same as all the ones before it. At exactly six-oh-hundred hours she awoke without the aid of an alarm, got out of bed, and bathed. It was the same routine every time, something deeper than habit, drilled into her by a life of strict martial discipline.

On this morning, her right elbow ached in the chilly morning air, a nagging pain soon echoed by her left ankle. With minor satisfaction she noted the sharp stabbing pain in her lower back had receded to a dull throb. That was something. Her back had been thrown out during last week's mission, an event that had seeded numerous aches and pains only now sprouting to life.

It was cold in Samus's ground floor apartment, though she supposed it would feel warm to a normal human being. Just to be sure, she increased the thermal index on her apartment's heating unit.

Bounty hunter no longer, she spent her days behind a desk, and occasionally, like last week, supervising riot control on Neotamnna. However, during this latest tour of riot duty, Samus's idea of supervision turned out to be a little more hands on than her superiors would've liked. But what were they going to do about it? Fire her? Please.

She ate a hasty breakfast of plain cereal and leftover steak. The meat was dry, but Samus wolfed it down just the same. Serving as a captain in the Galaxy Police did not pay well, and on the Federation Capital planet, Neotamnna, the cost of living was exorbitant. Fresh meat became an infrequent luxury in the balance of her tight budget.

Cleaned and dressed, Samus used her remaining thirty minutes to primp and preen in front of her bedroom mirror. It was an activity she despised, one rarely performed. But today, the day of the appeal, everything must be just so. Samus had waited thirty years for this day; she wasn't about to screw it up for anything.

At last she was ready. Five minutes to spare. With nothing else to do, Samus continued to study her reflection and made the mistake of truly seeing herself for the first time in a long while.

She had become old.

She couldn't complain. At the age of one hundred and three, she didn't look a day over fifty. Metroids lived a long time, she knew, and Chozo longer still.

That was a bitter thought, for at age fifty-three everything in her life had changed for the worse. Her long blond hair grew slivery gray from the scalp, the hairline receded from her forehead by a quarter of an inch. Deep lines of care—the kisses from years of stress and frowning creased her face, cutting away at her beauty like deep cracks in a frozen pond's surface, turning her every expression grim, eyes fierce. Beneath her skin, firm and lean muscles still flexed. Her figure was only a rough approximation of what it had been long ago; breasts somewhat flattened, hips disappeared, her belly a loose sagging of skin.

_I get older, but I stay hard. I stay strong_, she thought. Looking down to the lean fingers of one hand, flexing them in the dust swirled rays of the morning sun she found all the affirmation she required.

Snapping out of it, Samus grabbed her satchel and strode out to the nearest bus stop. On time.

She arrived at the bus stop as the public transit unit hovered into a standstill. The former bounty hunter picked a seat near the front, squeezing between two fat businessmen onto a seat stripped bare of all padding by the passing of a million heavy asses. Samus hated public transportation: the lack of privacy, no control over her destination, or how fast she might arrive there. Being a six-foot-three human woman got a few stares, but not as many as it used to.

It was a while before the hushed whispers began to drift through the bus's cabin. Samus shut them out and meditated on what the appeal would require.

A full third of the Galactic Federation Senate now consisted of space pirates. That was not their race's true name, but Samus would call them nothing else. She had been informed many times in the past that no grudge or bias would be held against her this day for past work. Ancient history, they said, and now, thirty years later, her debt to the galaxy paid, her crimes would be behind her as well. Samus didn't believe it for a second, not of the space pirates in any case. But there remained a good chance that the other two thirds would hear her reasoning and remember the good she had done them.

At just two blocks from her stop, a thin, middle-aged man in slacks, shirt, and tie approached Samus while she scowled at the bus floor. His clothes were cheap, hair dark and ill kept, with large, bushy eyebrows above watery green eyes to match.

The former bounty hunter felt the footsteps approach more than heard them. The instant she noticed the extra presence, her gaze snapped up to meet the man's wide eyes. A film of sweat beaded his long face as delicate, busy fingers adjusted his tie in an unconscious soothing gesture. His expression showcased great tension. "Excuse me. I don't mean to pry and I hope I don't come off as rude…but are you _the_ Samus Aran, by any chance?" he asked in a voice that, to his credit, remained steady.

No one spoke. Every eye turned to stare.

"You wouldn't remember me," the slim man continued, "It was four decades ago when you saved our colony on Tersic Six. After the fighting was over, my parents and I left our shelter to thank you. However, we found that you had already left before we could do so, and well—"

"What are you playing at, why do you harass me? You don't even know what Samus looked like, she never left her suit. Do you go around saying this to every tall woman you see?" Samus's voice was a glacier cracking open. She did not need this distraction, on this day of all days. And she held her privacy at premium.

"W-well. It was the news. Everybody saw you on the news. Without your suit. At the trial."

The hover bus jerked to a sudden stop. Time to get off.

Samus sprang to her feet and brushed by the man, a child she had once saved, one of many, almost pushing him off his feet as she did so. There was more whispering, not so quiet now, as she rushed down the aisle and into the open air of the sidewalk. She did not look back.

Standing out on the pedestrian channel, she prayed that the man with the bushy eyebrows and the questions would stay on the bus. A handful of passengers got off with her, each adopting the un-pointed, private stare of city pedestrians the galaxy over as they dissipated into the morning rush. Mr. Eyebrows was not one of them, and for that she was most grateful. The hover transit unit lifted off and continued on its way with a buzzing of antigravity drives.

How stupid! To forget that her face, _her body_, had been plastered on every view screen in the Federation and beyond! Even the enforced solitude that had followed denied her the luxury of regaining the private life they had thrown to the solar winds. The cameras had covered entire walls for the sentencing. How many matrix sites on the Interior Network displayed her likeness on their front pages? It did not bare thinking about.

Collecting herself, Samus took a deep breath and gazed at her watch. Still on time.

Before her loomed the grand Federation Senate building: a spiraling tower of white and gold that rubbed shoulders with a skyline as diverse as the Federation itself. Neotamnna Prime, the capital city of this capital world, shared a common theme of antiquity. Each sky scrapper's architecture was a culture's ancient design set to modern materials and function. It had been tradition for centicycles, one that every architect and urban planner worked hand in hand to enforce. No one could build a building in downtown without pre-approved old world charm. And the Federation Senate towered above them all. Most found the vision too busy for the eyes to take in all at once. It reminded Samus of gazing at so many cheap 3D postcards plastered on the façade of a souvenir stand.

Through no less than six security checkpoints and a long elevator ride later, Samus finally walked the halls of the Federation's inner sanctum. The walls were formed from metal glass alloy, so polished and smooth that a hand placed against it would slide off like a foot slipping on a patch of ice. The motif was one of stately oranges and yellows, set in sweeping patterns of waves and reeds bent diagonal in a fierce storm.

At last Samus found the Senate Chamber entrance, great red double doors that towered a story high. Two bailiffs, clad in spotless star white power armor, motioned her inside without a wait.

The senate chamber itself was a prefect circle. All one hundred Federation Senators sat on benches that curved around the inner circumference of the room's top half, five aisles high. The walls and seats were painted the same muted red brown of rust, the gold crest of the Galactic Federation set into the high flat ceiling. A small raised platform with a podium and a voice amplifier had been set up in the room's center.

A bailiff in the same white armor signaled for her to step up to the podium and she did so. The obsidian insect eyes of the space pirates regarded her without emotion from the rightmost quadrant of the benches. Samus had to wonder if these were the sons, or perhaps the grandsons of the scum she had killed in her life's work.

The human Speaker stood then and began to deliver his prepared speech. Samus knew his name to be Ponchik. She found his flapping jowls hypnotic. He was a round man, flesh heavy with the plenty of breathtaking wealth. The Speaker told those assembled of Samus's noble service to the Federation as a bounty hunter, of the people she had saved, of the star systems liberated. He spoke of that horrible day when Samus committed her terrible crime—when one hundred and thirty nine souls, ten of them humans, holding peace talks aboard _The Black Claw _were killed. Samus had fired upon them, destroying the ship despite their repeated pleas for mercy. Each broadcast had fallen on deaf ears that day, Ponchik said, his voice adopting that solemn tone all great public speakers master.

Lastly, he announced to the Senate that her thirty years of service with the galactic police were complete, her traveling restraint lifted, the dept to galactic civilization paid. Her frozen assets had been given to the families of the victims in compensation, however, and would not be returned.

Samus half listened to all this, she knew it all too well, contenting herself to scan from the corners of her eyes the space pirates and their unwavering glare. They betrayed no discernable reaction to this long speech, only sat there, a heavy threatening presence that tugged at her from the right, daring her to turn and face their way.

"Now that we have granted you release, is there any appeal you wish to bring to us?"

Hearing this phrase Samus snapped to attention—her chance had arrived. The reply was quick to shoot from her mouth but resounded bold and sure. "Senate of the Galactic Federation, I lay but one humble request at your feet. Restore to me my Chozo battle armor, which you have kept these thirty years of my mandatory service."

The Speaker Ponchik turned to the chief representatives of the races, senators who spoke for all the others, and exchanged a few hushed queries. Anxious glances were exchanged, arms gripped, ears received whispers. The rest of the chamber remained silent. Samus squeezed the sides of her podium till her knuckles turned white, keeping her face still.

A final series of solemn frowns and nods passed among the chief representatives. The Speaker once again faced Samus from across the chamber and said, "We are most sorry, but restoration of your armor is not possible. Our humblest." He bowed. "However, we may return to you your ship, which—"

"I didn't ask for any ship," Samus cut in. "I appeal for my suit. It is worth more to me than anything." She regretted those last words immediately. It did not do to admit desperation in front of one's enemies. But what choice did she have now?

"Ms. Aran, the Chozo armor is the property of the Federation now. There are other models of armor on the market just as powerful. Please, take your ship. Remain in the Galactic Police to hold your position of honor, or find a new path in life. The old life is gone now. Start anew."

Samus could feel her face growing hot. She released the podium, ignoring the deep imprints her fingers left in the wood.

"I know you've run every test on my armor, made every schematic, backwards engineered everything you could. But after thirty years surely it can be of no more use to your scientists. In the past, the armor provided my living, my way of life. I have a right to return to my life's work."

From behind the Speaker the space pirate representative rose to his hind claws. He burbled and growled, a translator converting the noise into the Common Language and amplifying it back out in a deep, stately voice. "Aran. That is the crux of our denial. I speak for everyone when I say not one of us wants to see the return of the Metal Clad Hunter. You have done quite enough harm to our race as it is and many others besides. I see no reason to allow that to continue."

The space pirate senators roared their approval, joined by a scattering of verbal support from other races. Those not voicing their opinion publicly turned to their colleagues, tongues flying.

Here it was at last, Samus knew. To be denied by the pirates was expected. They were canny enough to see her for what she really was: the source of all their fears. But to be betrayed by those who had the most to benefit moved beyond the pale of her tolerance.

With both hands knotted into fists Samus hammered the podium, cracking the wooden top in half and sending a splintery thud loud enough to be heard over the din crashing through the chamber. Every eye once again turned to her, tongues stilled. She could feel her face burning red with rage and didn't care. Few that now lived had seen her like this before.

"Yes! It will continue! I sure as hell will not stop, with my armor or without," she shouted, pointing to the chief pirate representative. "The Federation may have forgotten how the space pirates executed my parent's colony. I have not. They may brush aside the evidence of your genocidal planetary sweeps and scoff at the memory of the brave soldiers you have slain. But I will not. The Federation allows you to infest its ranks, seduced by the technology you bring to it and by your false promises of peace. But I am not fooled. You can not bury me in that grave you call a 'position of honor.'" She reached into her blazer's pocket and produced her Galactic Police Sergeant's badge. With a lightening flick of her arm she threw it to the floor. The decorative metal snapped in two with a burst of orange sparks, the fragments sliding to a stop at the foot of the Speaker's chair. "The only job I accept is the executioner of my enemies—those who prey upon us all."

The chief space pirate representative leaned forward then and asked, "Is this the same speech you delivered to the crew onboard the _Black Claw_? Did your words comfort the innocents there as you slew them?"

Before she could reply a pirate senator leapt to his feet and shouted, "Such bigotry! She would murder us all!" Another rose to join him. And another, until a chorus of furious rebuke drowned out all other sound. "There is no repentance here," and, "She plots anarchy and genocide. As much as been said here today," and, "Throw her back into prison. For all our sakes," and so on. At last the Speaker signaled for quiet.

When he had obtained it, he regarded the tense woman below over his nose. "The Federation and its people have no more need of you, hunter, for we protect them now. What you have said here today proves the appropriateness of your retirement."

"This is unjust," Samus hissed through clenched teeth.

"On the contrary," the Speaker continued, not skipping a beat. "The Federation has bent over backwards for you. You committed a grave crime—one that any other sentient being would face death or life imprisonment for. In light of your outstanding service to us in the past, we were obliged to offer a lighter sentence. Today you have given us cause to doubt the wisdom of it. Guards, escort Aran from the Senate."

The men in white power armor stepped close to Samus, encircling her. Their helmet's black visors hid their faces. One held a raised plasma rifle. Before they could lay a hand on her, Samus spun around and stormed from the chamber, never looking back.

She remembered little of the return trip home, save that she slumped over in her bus seat the whole way back. Sitting with arms crossed over her stomach and her hair falling down over her face straight and gray as a heavy winter rain, she felt shrunken, almost nonexistent. No one stared; no one asked her questions.

Once back in her apartment she sank to her bed and took a long hard look at her reflection. Her hair was a mess, skin pale, eyes set deep in their sockets, rimmed with bruised skin. It was well past time for lunch, but she had no appetite. The rage and disgust bled from her, leaving despair and a trace of fear.

They wanted her to destroy herself, she knew. It didn't get any more cut and dry. They had taken her life's purpose, stealing her last link to her real parents, the Chozo. She was withering—sickening a little more each day. Life was harsher outside the suit, her injuries persisted without its restoring powers. What was left now to sustain her? Better to lie down in this room and wait for the end…

"No!" Samus wailed out loud, grinding her blue veined knuckles into her eyes. She bit down on her lower lip until she felt sharp pain and tasted the salty flow of blood.

_Focus_, she commanded herself.

For a good fifteen minutes she stood like this, face buried in fists, red dribbling down her chin.

When it had passed, Samus wiped off the blood with her sleeve and salved the bite wound. It had been a close thing. But she could not allow herself the luxury of despair, would not give up the will to live. Something would be done, she was certain. But what?

That afternoon, over a sparse dinner, there came a buzz from her doorbell. Sliding from her seat at the table, Samus took hold of her service rifle and edged her way to the apartment entrance. She flattened against the wall and slid towards the one sided viewing portal installed in her front door. Not making a sound she peered though, keeping out of sight. Seeing whom it was she opened the door immediately.

Nuvwick Syreis, Representative of Humans at the Senate stood on her doorstep, wearing the flowing red and gold robes of his office. As chief representative and senator, he had been sitting behind the Speaker at her appeal. Through the whole affair he had appeared neutral to her plight and Samus had not given him a second glance. Now he gave a small bow of courtesy and asked to be allowed inside.

Samus relaxed at once. The Senate did not send one of their own to arrest criminals. One soldier accompanied him. The escort wore a black and gray suit of power armor, the same model worn by the bailiffs, save the color. Only the elite among the Federation armed forces were issued such a uniform.

Samus bid him to enter with the bare minimal of politeness. "Justin, stay here and insure that we are not disturbed," he said to the elite soldier.

Leaving Justin posted just outside her front door, Samus gave the senator a seat in her den. "No, that's quite alright. This will be a rather quick meeting I'm afraid. No time for refreshments," Nuvwick said to her, settling in as she moved to take her own seat across the room. Samus had to smile at that: she had had no intention to offer him a damn thing. Perching on her biggest chair like a bird of prey, Samus fixed him with her gaze and waited.

Nuvwick was in his fifties, with a bald head and white nose hairs. A portly man, just short of being fat, he stood a full foot shorter than Samus. His fingers were short and plump—he occasionally used them to stroke a mole the size of a coin growing high on his right cheek. When Nuvwick saw that no words were forthcoming from the former bounty hunter, he began, "My most humble apologies for how the Senate carried itself at your appeal this morning. I don't think anyone really meant to put you on trial a second time. Yes."

Samus's eyes bored into his, dark and hard in the pale artificial lighting of her apartment. She said nothing.

"The former space pirates now form a bold and influential voice within the Federation and it does not pay to dismiss that voice in haste," he continued, circling his mole with the round tip of an index finger. "Nonetheless, I, and a select few others, see the folly of today's proceedings. Yes, and we are prepared to make certain restitutions."

"And just what would those be, senator? Make it brief, if you can." Samus's tone was dry and sullen.

"You have a personal computing unit of recent make, yes? Ah, I see it there." Nuvwick rose and reached forward, slipping a cylinder of smooth, cool metal into her hand. "Place this data stick into your computer before the night is old. Survey the information you find there. It will do you some no small good, I think."

Nuvwick stood and gave Samus's questioning expression a small smile, sweet and secretive. "There are still those who believe in your life's mission, Lady Aran. You are still needed by those depending on you. Good day." With that said, the senator showed himself out, the whisper of fine silk trailing behind. "Stand to, Justin. We depart," she heard him say just before the front door closed, and they were gone.

With a dry mouth and a film of sweat gathering on her brow, Samus inserted the data stick into her computer's port and called for the files inside. She dared not breathe, dared less to hope for what might be stored on the stick.

The information came in heaps, displayed on the holographic monitor in vivid color. Floor plans, security codes, security patrol routes, and check point locations. The senator had given her every bit of info she would need to get her Chozo armor back as well as her ship. This was a good thing because her possessions were currently stored on the bottom level of the largest military research facility on the planet.

Long before this, Samus had marked the facility, dubbed Installation #407, as the most likely resting place for her lost artifacts. Now, not only did she have proof of this, but held the key to every lock as well.

The sun had set long before she finished reviewing every document on the data stick for the fourth time. The twenty-second hour of Neotamnna's twenty eight-hour cycle ended. Samus stretched her arms and legs, leaning back in her chair with a cold smile of satisfaction.

Tomorrow, those who would seek to bury her would find an empty grave.


	2. Plunder

**Two.**

The Chozo sit in a dark room of cold metal. Most huddle against the four walls of their bleak hiding place, some sit, talons resting on another's shoulder, or leaning against their neighbor. Even so there is little comfort. Once regal robes and sashes and armor plates lay tattered and soiled on the backs of their owners, their weapons tarnished in disuse.

Samus realizes they are waiting for something, likely their death. She is not told this—only knows it so surely for that is the way dreams are and dreams are always a contrived vision. For what seems like an age she wanders among them, a nonentity. Glimpsing each face in turn, she receives no acknowledgment, but finds a tired acceptance in every liquid black eye.

Now she is floating above them, as if a cloud of smoke swirling on the ceiling. A door opens at one end of the square room. Light pours through in a spreading triangle, fanning out over the floor, wide over the back wall. It is a white light, harsh, revealing every crumb of squalor, every speck of vulnerability in washed out detail.

Samus's heart aches as she witnesses the unfortunate people's final moments below her. If only she could know such as them in waking life! Her brain races with panic. And yet, she is not possessed by these emotions. They seem separate from her somehow, unrelated and unimportant. _It is not real_, she tells herself, and manages to half believe it.

The Chozo warriors rush into the breach and are cut down by bolts of light brighter than the light of the open door. For the rest, the elderly and the young, are blades—dancing with white reflections at first, opaque with dark fluid soon after. Last come stomping feet that are heavy and swift as they rise and fall.

Samus sees the attackers only as blurs, rushing into the metal cell like rats to a meal. It is enough to know that they are dark in color, a detail Samus dismisses, for isn't black the brain's first way of labeling evil?

As the vision below her empties of life, a Chozo elder rises to his feet from the back of the room and locks onto her line of sight, immaterial as it is. He is taller than the rest, gaunt, with eyes like pockets of midnight.

This does not alarm Samus. By her age nightmares hold no surprises. She waits, ready to hear and see.

"Hatchling, the time for fulfilling your life's holy mission draws to its end," he says in a voice infinitely solemn and wise.

_I am no longer a hatchling by any measure_, Samus thinks back. If the Chozo hears, he does not show it.

"Take back your weapons," he continues, "given to you so long ago. Strike down our enemies. But it will be a close thing. Dishonor and death waits below the smiles of those you trust. Study close their hollow shells that you may divine their true natures."

Then his voice is a roar that echoes over distances unmeasured and unseen. He holds his long thin arms into the air. "Hatchling! Do not forget your charge. Avenge! For you are the last!" With that said the shadowy wraiths descend on the elder at last, daggers of light sparkling in black fists.

The sound of thunder crashed through her mind then, louder than any storm witnessed awake.

* * *

Samus woke up then, not jerking awkwardly as if from a nightmare, but rather she simply opened her eyes and sat up. The distant roar of thunder still echoed in her ears. She checked the time, 02:58 hours, two minutes before she meant to rise. 

It took less than half an hour for her to wash, dress, and gather her belongings. She thought little of the dream. It did not disturb her. She would have been dead long ago if she had taken the warnings and omens of every nightmare seriously, Chozo in origin or not. In her youth, she had been taught that Chozo shamans could send important messages through dreams and waking visions. But the Chozo had been gone for a long time, and there were none left to send such a message. What mattered was here and now. And the warning at the end, what of that? Samus needed no reminding that Nuvwick or any other mysterious benefactors were untrustworthy. She gave the whole venture a fifty-fifty split. It could be that Nuvwick and a few others truly wanted to see her back in action, or perhaps it was a trap of sorts. Either way, if she had a chance to regain her second half, she knew she must take it. The alternative was worse than any betrayal.

Wearing a plain red jacket, tan pants, and a wide brimmed hat, Samus set out to the bus stop, a gym bag slung over one shoulder. Neotamnna Prime was a city that never slept, a galactic melting pot. Many species remained nocturnal. They filled the streets and buildings, shopping, having breakfast with their families, going to work. Lives like any other played out under the stars. Samus blended right into the crowds, far from being the only humanoid out that night.

Above the skyscrapers loomed two moons, one with a pink cast to its rocky surface, the other opaque with volcanic glass and ash, rivers of lava so large they could be seen as thin lines of red veining its surface. Samus switched from bus to walking and back again, working her way north to the city's industrial zone. By the time she found the marker described on the data stick, the time was 04:47 hours. The trip had taken longer than she expected. The marker was a restaurant named Min's Café. There were two signs labeling it so, one over the front entrance, as was usual, and a battered second which hung over the alley that stood between the café and the neighboring building.

Samus stepped lightly into the ally, eyes darting back and forth, straining to spot attackers in hiding. Shadows lay behind every object, inside every hole and nook. But no ambush came. The only light in the ally arrived from an overhanging bulb, revolving in a slow circle with the night's breeze, casting a circle of orange light over the center of the grit covered ally floor. Just to the right of this spotlight sat a pale blue polymer dumpster.

This was what the info on the data stick had told her to look for. Lifting the crusty lid open, Samus dug around with one arm inside the foul smelling darkness. Her hand eventually bumped into something solid and heavy with a sleek metal surface. Pulling it free from the empty food containers and soiled napkins she brought it into the light—a hefty metal briefcase with a thumbprint scanner. Placing her thumb on the shiny black sensor, the lock chimed a cheery note and the case clicked open. Inside were the technician's outfit and id badge she would need to pass the initial layers of security. Nuvwick was good to his word, at least this far.

The time was now 05:01. She would be late if she did not hurry.

Shuffling back into the shadows, Samus removed her jacket and shoes, pulling on the technician jumpsuit over her street clothes. Next on were the brown work boots from the briefcase. Samus tied her hair behind her head in a loose ponytail before pulling out the blush and eyeliner from her own backpack. Makeup wasn't her thing, but every last trick was needed to hide her all-too-familiar face. If it turned out to be a rush job, all the better, Samus figured. She could not recall any technician beauty queens.

Shoving everything into the armored briefcase, Samus set out, still on foot, down the street of Mir's Café, the road that would lead her to Installation #407.

The shiny and red stoned commercial buildings fell away to hulking fortresses of dull white metal and gray cement like a scab giving way to pale skin. Samus entered the industrial zone.

The zone was kept relatively free of crime, at least of the unorganized variety, by numerous patrols of private security forces; the business end of Neotamnna Prime was quite and calm. Still three blocks away from #407, Samus began to spy the Federation guards keeping a close watch on the road. Samus knew they were Federation because they were the only guards that dressed in civilian clothing: some as workers looking over their tools at five in the morning, to bums, huddling next to barrel fires with a flask of liquor in their hands and a gun under their soiled trench coats. They watched from windows and courtyards and curbsides, mere wisps of ghosts in comparison to the flashy rent-a-soldiers that stood tall and proud in plain view, guarding their contractor's property in neon blazers that reflected obscene amounts of brash color into the night.

Samus allowed no eye contact for any of them, even as she felt the gaze of many faces tug at hers for a response they could measure. She kept her pace quick, never close to running, but never slow. Slumping, she let the bill of her hat shadow over her eyes.

_This will never work. Anybody can see that it's me. I'll be caught, then I'll go to prison. This is suicide._ Samus had to tip the corner of her mouth up in amusement. How long had it been since she last sweated the odds? A shiver of sudden excitement shook her spine. It had been too long.

No one approached her and soon the vast paved lot of Installation #407 passed beneath her boots. The facility itself only had two stories above ground, rambling over half a square mile. Samus noted a large open yard, uncluttered by any supplies, set on the back of the lot away from the street. It occupied nearly a fourth of the installation grounds. This, she knew, would split open to reveal the spaceship bay.

Here there were Federation troops in uniform, the black and gray power armor suits of the military. They stopped her twice, once at the outer gates, then at the front door checkpoint. Each time Samus's face was the very picture of complacency. Just another working stiff facing the same old shit on a different day.

After scanning the id badge pinned to her chest, they let her through without hassle.

Inside, the first thing to do was check in with the receptionist. The stiff lipped woman behind the front desk asked why she was a full eight minutes late, to which Samus shrugged and mumbled something about forgetting her tools.

"And just what are you supposed to be jabbing at today, my bright little wrench jockey?" the receptionist asked, purple lipstick encrusted a mouth that broke into a cheerless sneer.

Without hesitation Samus replied, "Cryogenic storage leakage in the condensing coils."

"I've been informed of no such repairs. Where's Sandra? She's our usual cryo technician. She gets here on _time_."

Again Samus shrugged, allowing her jaw to go slightly slack. "Sick, I think. Double check, please." In truth, the night before Sandra had found an envelope tucked under her pillow full of standards and a note saying she should check in sick this morning.

The receptionist's expression soured as she produced a clipboard and scanned the list of names. This time Samus did hold her breath.

At last the witch tossed the board aside with a snap of the arm, as if deciding not to hurl it in Samus's face at the last second. "Okay, you're clear to go. Be quick about it." Samus accepted a slip of polyglass on which was scribed, by microscopic lasers, the level two key code, and vanished down the halls, eager to be away from the other woman's scrutinizing gaze.

There were plenty of locked doors between her and the target, but Nuvwick had given her the only key she would ever need.

After being escorted to the second basement cryo storage units by a level two guard, she pretended to set to work, turning screws, removing panels, waiting for her escort to wander off. He did so after a few minutes, leaving her alone.

Samus pulled the installation's floor plans from her front pocket and spread it out on the floor, away from an expanding pool of coolant. The Installation was unimaginative in its design. Each floor consisted of a square within a square, the inner square being the offices and laboratories boxed in with one another. The people who worked in these offices and labs would not arrive until 07:00. An unbroken hallway of brushed steel formed the outer square, with an elevator on the western side and a staircase on the east. The stairs were out. Too many cameras inside the stairwell, and the guards would hear and see anything coming down them. Samus could handle a single man, but here there were plenty, and in close quarters without a weapon things could get tricky. Putting out the sensors also presented difficulties. At the first sign of tampering or breakdown the level of alarm would be raised and the area thoroughly swept. That left the grav-lift elevator. It was now 05:30 hours. The current shift of guards was to be relieved at 06:00, after a long, boring night of work. They were tired and sluggish, which translated to more openings in which to slip through in patrols. It would be possible to make her way down the elevator shaft, passing security clearance as she went, hiding from guards until she was inside the inner square of the tenth basement level. No cameras watched the elevator shaft itself, just the inside of the lift and the hallway entrance. That left only the laser grid to deal with.

Folding the paper up and putting it away, Samus returned to her repairs for a few minutes. Then, she opened the briefcase and took out two slim metal tools. Having all she required, Samus closed the case and tucked it under a nearby desk. It was time to make excuses. She stood up, stretched her arms and yawned, lumbering from the lab and through the hall around to the east side. The two guards she met in the break room barely glanced up from their coffee and calorie sticks at her approach. Their helmets were removed and sitting on the table. "I'm going to use the elevator, going up to the first floor to get something. You need to go with me?"

"Nope," one guard said. "You've got your card with you right? Don't want to have to escort your ass down here again."

"Don't worry," she replied with a dry smile. As Samus left, one of the soldiers radioed control, and told them of her impending arrival on the ground floor.

"Have you ever heard such speech?" asked one guard to the other.

"Sounds perhaps she was raised by her grandparents," said the other. Samus didn't bother listening to the rest.

Reaching the elevator, Samus removed one of the small cylindrical tools for her pants pocket. One visual/heat camera covered the entrance to the elevator, as expected. Samus moved in front of the camera's view of the call button panel, in a stance she hoped those watching in control wouldn't find suspicious. With the press of a finger on the metal rod's side, a thin slat of metal emerged. Samus slid this into the elevator's security override, a small hole that looked like a data serial port. Samus continued to hunch around, appearing to be a mere technician, half asleep and pressing in the "up" button, while the tool—a type of key only carried by top intelligence agents of the Federation—told the elevator to stay put while fooling the doors into opening without a carriage behind them, something they would ordinarily never do.

After a twenty second eternity, the doors peeled open. Samus stepped inside the elevator shaft, taking her place on the service ladder embedded into the shaft's wall just to the right of the doors. A quick check confirmed the elevator car itself remained high overhead, on the top floor. Doors closed behind, a metallic eyelid blinking shut. Hanging onto the slim rungs of the ladder, Samus could glance over her shoulder and spot the series of white eyes hidden in the circular silver elevator shaft, each projecting a laser beam, that, if passed through by anything over than the elevator car itself, would trigger the security measures. The lasers themselves were invisible, no need to color them here for the usual dramatic effect. And the security feature of this elevator, Nuvwick's notes had told her, was a particularly grisly one. If a foreign body were to be detected by the laser grind, the elevator itself would speed up, rising or dropping into the intruder with all the velocity and force of a small spacecraft traveling at escape velocity. There would be nothing left but some bloody gristle smeared along the smooth walls, or perhaps only a fine red mist wafting in the filtered air.

Had they seen anything suspicious before the doors closed? she wondered. What did it matter? They would notice soon enough that no one had arrived on the ground floor. She had to hurry, but couldn't afford the slightest error.

Putting the key away, she produced the second tool, similar in appearance to the first, but this one a little fatter. Depressing the bottom side of the tube caused what looked like a miniature satellite dish to fold out on the other side, overlapping sections of the tool popping out like an old fashioned telescope. This one was a hand held spatial disruptor, a device that could broadcast minute fluctuations in the space-time continuum. Samus knew it cost a small fortune, perhaps just enough proof that Nuvwick was for real if he was willing to trust something like this in the hands of a down-on-her luck bounty hunter. Just one shot of this thing could shut down a laser emitter without triggering any tampering countermeasures. That is, as long as she didn't over do it. One half second too long, and down would come the elevator to deliver her on one last ride.

The hunter had just enough room to reverse her direction on the ladder. Head first she eased down each bar, the disruptor clenched in teeth.

She came to the first emitter, little more than an ivory disk of metal amidst the sheen of its surroundings. It had been placed at just the angle to catch anything passing by on the ladder. Removing the wand from her teeth, taking the greatest of cares not to drop it, Samus pointed the disruptor and held the trigger down for little more than a second. The disruptor made a high pitched bleating noise, while a brittle, plastic _snap_ sounded from the laser itself. The hunter took a long hard look at the disk, but could see not visible change. Had it been enough?

Cursing under her breath, she thrust her hand back and forth in front of the emitter. Nothing happened. The elevator stayed put. Samus climbed down and continued to the next.

She was efficient, her disruptor bursts tight and controlled, and still she cursed at the slow progress. She had done better under worse conditions before, she knew. The lasers on the opposite side of the hole from the ladder were the worst. They took a little longer at this distance by about half a second, and it grew increasingly harder to draw an accurate bead on them. It wasn't too long before her vision blurred slightly, forcing her to wiggle the tool around until enough hit to do the job.

About three quarters of the way down the shaft, something sighed overhead. The sound of anti-gravity pads coming to life, and the sound of air hissing as it rushed through the crack between elevator and wall. The car lowered one floor and stopped. Samus's heart beat in her chest like prey feeling the clenching jaws of a predator.

Eight minutes had passed, she estimated, by the time she arrived at the bottom. They were probably searching everywhere for her now. This worried her more than she liked, but without much in the way of weapons she could only grit her teeth and refocus on the task at hand.

The final doorway was like the others, except thicker. There were six nodes, or locks, hiding inside the wall around the door, where the frame would be if there had been one. Each one would have to be hit with a heavy dose of the disruption fields before giving away. Three lasers remained that crisscrossed the shaft's final few feet, one stood in the way of easy access to the door. She chose not to tamper with them, and began on the two highest locks from higher up on the ladder.

These finished easily enough, a barely audible hiss of metal signaling their release, and Samus crept down a little farther, moving right to the next two.

Above her, the elevator car hissed and lowered down to the first basement.

Finishing with the middle locks, Samus noted that the closest laser angled up over her path to the floor, blocking off the entrance's lowest third. There was no way to get as close to the remaining two locks as she had with the others without crossing it. She had disabled ten on her trip down, how much longer would she remain lucky? Caution won in the end.

Scooting forward a few desperate inches Samus fired the disruptor at the door's lowest corner closest to her. She held it there for a good minute, the beeping driving her close to rage. Finally, she heard the lock slide open. Every second that passed carried a greater threat of discovery, of capture. Samus looked long and hard at the far corner for a few seconds, estimating how much longer it would take at this distance, then made her decision. She would risk tampering with one last laser.

First, the hunter reversed her direction on the ladder. When the door opened, she wanted to reach the other side on her feet. She stuck out her arm at the disk and fired. The laser emitter did not simply crack like the others, but shattered outward in a small burst of shrapnel. Overhead, a harsh electric note shrilled over and over. _Bree! Bree! Bree!_

The elevator's security system had activated.

It wouldn't take long for the car to reach her, no more than a few seconds she realized. Knowing it was her only chance, Samus jumped to the shaft's bottom. Here the threshold of the tenth basement came to the halfway point between her hips and knees. She thrust the disruptor onto the last remaining lock, over the place in the metal she knew it to be.

Almost at once the last lock node released, and the door's shutter fell open with a limp, nerveless movement. From above came a constant scream, growing louder by the millisecond, close enough now to hurt her ears. Samus threw herself into the entrance.

There was a truly awful moment when the half open shutters pushed back against her, preventing entry. If she let out her own scream at this point, it was impossible to tell, the sound of the elevator's approach consumed everything. A hot rush of wind washed over the back of her neck.

Instinct moved the hunter to push with all she had. She felt the metal plates slide over, could see the hallway just beyond, could feel the slick floor tiles under her boots.

The elevator came down behind her then. Its heat washed over her, generated by the friction and overworked anti-gravity pads. _I'm dead_, she despaired, _it'll pull me back in by my hair and crush me!_

Samus finished falling forward onto the polished floor of the tenth basement. She was inside the outer square. Reaching behind her head she found the technician's ponytail, still tied in its neat little bundle. Samus allowed herself a grim chuckle, then kippered to her feet. Her muscles felt like rubber but she kept moving.There wasn'tmuch time.

There had been no crash. The elevator car had stopped at what must have been a few centimeters from the shaft's floor, a marvel of Federation engineering. The siren continued to blare out its evenly spaced beat. From both left and right, around the hall's two corners came the sound of footsteps, running full tilt in heavy footwear.

Samus pocketed the disruptor and brought out the master key. In the twitch of an eyelid she had the key's interface shoved into the nearest door's lock. The lock gave away easily. Dashing inside, Samus closed the door quickly and silently behind her, and turned to face the inner corridors of the Federation labs.

The hallway had a thin red carpet on the floor, and walls painted an off cream color. It was only wide enough for one human to pass through in comfort. Doors made of dark steel with shiny chrome knobs punctuated the hall at irregular patterns.

She made her way forward, crouched, stepping forward heel first to remain quite. Security would begin their sweeps any second now, and she did not wish to give them a head start by making noise.

A small black polymer sign was placed next to each doorframe, denoting the nature of each interior. These she did not bother to read, the floor plans memorized in exhaustive detail. Being a bounty hunter meant knowing one's environment.

As she padded silently along, her knees began to complain about her stealthy posture. That they would tire so soon dismayed her. She had yet to hear further sounds of pursuit, a fact that raised a flag of caution within her head. This was dismissed. Well beyond the point of no return, Samus asked herself if she was ready to give everything, to die for this suit of armor. The answer welled up from within her, and it was absolute.

Traveling at a good pace, it did not take her long to find the right door. "Reclaimed Systems Storage," the sign just overhead read. The master key did its job once more, and she was inside.

Except for a soft glow in the far right corner of the room, there was no light. Machines and stored devices of all shapes and sizes loomed in the near black like petrified monsters. The air she breathed carried the harsh sour smell of cleaning chemicals, like the kind used in military hospitals.

It took Samus an extra few seconds to work her way to the glow's source, the room was so cluttered with junk that she could not find a direct path. She ended up stubbing a toe twice.

There, in the room's back corner, she found a bank of backlit steel glass containers. Most of them held weapons of various alien models. In the middle, set into an upright mold of frosted steel glass, rested her power suit. The signature scarlet helmet remained from the original design, most everything else had changed over the years with upgrades beyond counting. What it had kept was its supremacy of function and form.

Samus wasted no time pulling the hatch open. A horrible moment of doubt seized her then: did the Chozo armor remain in working condition? These last thirty years must have seen it disassembled and put back together a thousand times. What if there were parts missing, stored elsewhere?

She had to know now; delaying any longer seemed madness. As she reached out to open the suit she noted with wonder that her hands trembled. Tears seeped to the edges of her eyes, but did not emerge as her fingers trailed down the textured metal skin of the outer armor, finding the hidden release programmed so long ago to respond to her presence alone. In an instant the suit purred to life under her touch.

_They could never take it apart_, she thought with pride, _They could never so much as open it without me_!

Samus shed her clothing down to her underwear, a suit of skintight synthetic membrane that covered her like an acrobat's leotard. She entered the suit, activated its systems, ran diagnostics. The Chozo armor closed back over her, drawing tighter than any layer of skin, closer than any lover's embrace.

Her right hand glided into the arm cannon, finding the switches and triggers just as she remembered them. Each responded instantly, graceful under her practiced fingers as the arm cannon changed shape to accommodate the myriad of weapons modes. Now the tears came, sparse and ice cold on her cheeks.

She emerged from the storage unit, the suit's movement silky smooth, her body's aches and pains left behind.

A glance at the HUD informed Samus of a hearty supply of missiles and super missiles waiting in stock, as well as every beam she had ever collected. The space jump boots were online, as well as the varia and gravity suits, along with her morph ball functionality. Even the screw attack remained.

This struck the hunter as too good to be true. More warnings sprouted in the back of her mind, less faint than before, but she had no time to consider them for the lab's lights turned on.

At the room's opposite wall, above a metal staircase, sat an office with a glass front overlooking the entire room. Two space pirate guards sat within. For a second nobody moved—Samus stared at them and they stared back. One of the pirates held a meat doughnut covered in white icing, halfway lifted to his gaping maw, the other a personal computing device clutched in its claw, not yet powered up. It appeared that they were just commencing their workday.

Everything that happened next was a blur.

The pirate holding the doughnut dropped it and scrambled for his weapon holster, while his partner lurched for a communications terminal.

Samus, seeing that she had them by surprise, fired a volley of missiles at the office windows. The first two shattered the glass. The rest filled the small room with concentrated concussive blasts.

The bounty hunter did not stick around to find out if they survived. As the last missile detonated in a blossom of fire, she was out the door and running down the hall at top speed, heading east.

If she could reach the spaceship bay she might find her old gunship, or failing that, hijack another and make her escape.

The Speed Dash upgrade of her suit kicked in as she ran down the straight corridor, increasing her velocity, setting the red carpet on fire. Her armor glowed with power, flashing afterimages trailing behind her.

She plowed through the hallway door's steel like it was fiber wood and, finding no security soldiers to stop her, continued straight ahead into the east basement exit just as easily. The hall beyond was the same as everything else outside the laboratories, unadorned steel.

Samus kept running down the hall until meeting a corner that turned north. Here, she knew from the map in her brain, was a security checkpoint she would have to pass. She hoped they knew she was coming.

Slowing to a brisk jog and turning the corner Samus found herself in a rectangular room with a low ceiling. There were four guards standing outside their station, but they were not ready for her.

Three of them were human, the other a space pirate. All four reached for their weapons, but stopped when it became obvious this intruder in the power armor had them all covered with its arm cannon.

Samus switched to the plasma beam, and said, "Leave," pointing back the way she had come. The suit transmitted her voice exactly, for she believed voice masking's place in her life over.

Nobody moved to the exit, but a couple of the humans took their hands off the grips of their guns.

The space pirate waited until her cannon was not pointed at him, and in one swift jerk brought up his own arm-mounted blaster to fire. With ghost-like speed Samus aimed and double tapped the security guard in the chest with raw, red bolts of pure heat. His body reduced to ash on the spot, a few embers of charred carbon tinged with red fire scattered on the ground. The guard standing closest to the former pirate had what looked like a bad case of sunburn on every inch of exposed skin.

They didn't need to be told twice. Each one fled. Samus watched them go, debating to herself whether she should shoot them in the back or not. Finishing a job you start was a holy rule of bounty hunting, but today she could care less about the rules.

Where were the other guards? There should have been an army of them by now, after the elevator alarm. Why did no one seem prepared? She felt a fresh surge of paranoia then, eating away at the edges of her elation. This reeked of a disaster, even as things were turning out so well. There was nothing to do about it now, except move on, and watch.

Following the hall north from the checkpoint she emerged onto the bottom floor of the cavernous spaceport. It was designed much like the parking garages of antiquity, a series of open levels stacked over each other, connected by rising walkways all built around a square empty expanse at the center. Once a spaceship was ready to go, it would simply hover out from the ramps, into the central space, and fly up out of the ceiling gate, the same gate that appeared as an empty cement lot from the street outside.

Samus looked up now and saw that the gate ten stories above her head remained closed, as expected. It would be best take a ship, even if it wasn't hers, and worry about opening the way second. She began by scanning the ships of the bottom level, determined to work her way upwards. There wasn't much time left, security of some sort was bound to be here any second to stop her. The port was dead silent save for the I_thump/I_ of her steps on the fabricated stone.

The bottom level proved useless. The only ships stored here were in disrepair and in no shape to fly.

Samus followed a ramp up to the second level and continued her fast paced scanning. Here the lighting was poor. Deep patches of shadow enveloped much of the parking ramp. She took time to scan corners and dark areas for ambushes, despite her increasing sense of urgency. The port was still as silent as deep space. This wasn't right at all. Where were her enemies?

While examining a particularly promising two-man space cruiser there came from a few yards behind her a loud hissing, like sand paper scraped over sheet metal. Samus whirled around, already switching to her thermal visor.

She did not require heat vision, however, for the thing had crawled down from its perch atop the next spaceship over and skulked into the closest spotlight.

It was the same species as Ridley—for a second Samus thought it _was_ Ridley, back from the grave. But it was not the same creature, she saw now, the differences becoming obvious after a good look. It had the gangly skeletal figure of its kind, bound in slim muscles that flexed like cords of iron. Its scaly hide was the color of rotting oranges. Liquid egg yolk eyes stared down unpleasantly at her from a long snout lined with rows of needle teeth.

"My name is Drooga, and I'm here to make sure you go no further," it rasped in a voice like steam bursting from a pipe.

Samus kept her arm cannon to her side and squared herself in directly in front of the space dragon, keeping about forty feet of distance between them. "And what are you doing here? Some pup maggot of Ridley's come crawling out from the dung heap for revenge?"

"Ridley never lived long enough to sire young, as you well know," Drooga continued. "Though I find reason enough to hate you now that I've laid eyes on your decrepit frame, mine is a different purpose, O my sister."

Samus knew better than to inquire about his possible employer. Space dragons never talked. "I'm sister to no one. Leave or die, it's makes no difference to me."

Drooga let out another low, grating hiss. Unfurling leathery wings, he took two steps forward. "You should thank me for killing you. Better that such a sad thing die now than remain alive for the dishonor waiting on—"

Samus's right arm arced up in a blur, firing the first missile before her aim was level. Five more rockets followed, but only the first three hit. Drooga winced as the missile casings shattered on his chest. He was off his feet before the other projectiles found him and darted head on for Samus, wings beating furiously.

The bounty hunter, seeing that she was losing personal space, switched to super missiles and launched them at the charging beast. To her chagrin, Drooga barrel rolled out of harm's way with room to spare.

The space dragon hit her at full speed before she could move. His talons caught her left side, spinning her around. Drooga followed up by lashing out with long bony arms, knocking the hunter off her feet, and flinging her off the second level ledge to land on the floor below.

Ignoring the pain, Samus rose to her feet and charged up the wave beam. The space dragon was flying through the central clearing, turning in the air for another flying strike. Now she had time to lock the shot. She fired, hitting the base joint of one wing. He did not slow.

Samus stood her ground and continued to pelt him with charged shots as he homed in. Once again only a few hit. Drooga was deft at flying, more so than others of his kind. He would corkscrew to the side, or drop altitude suddenly, dodging her salvos with an almost lazy ease.

Samus's right elbow began to hurt as if a white-hot rivet had been driven into the bone. She gritted her teeth and kept firing. Drooga swooped and she sidestepped. The dragon caught her anyway, this time raking her chest, pushing her over. To add insult to injury his long bony tail cracked out and lashed her body as he flew by overhead. With a shriek of victory he flew away to circle around for another attack.

Drooga had the time to swoop around, reverse direction, and dive again by the time Samus shakily rose to standing. She berated herself, cursing his speed. A cruel voice from the back of her mind suggested that the problem wasn't so much Drooga's nimble wings but her age catching up with her at last. Samus banished the thought the second it formed.

Time ran out, Drooga was almost upon her. She needed to even the score, fast, and had a plan to do just that.

She fired a couple of standard missiles at the rushing dragon, each just a fraction too wide to hit their mark. Drooga had expected accurate shots, causing him to overcompensate and take one in the face. He shrieked with anger and dropped on the bounty hunter.

Samus feigned a step to the left, then dropped down into the morph ball instead. Drooga missed, and paid for it as a super missile shattered itself over his nether regions. More shots than he could count hammered his body before gaining cover behind the black metal support pillars of the second level.

Drooga remained on the second level, darting in and out behind pillars and ships until he had circled back around, closing in on Samus's position. The bounty hunter couldn't maintain a bead on the dragon. Her mouth a thin line, the skin on her face drawn tight with concentration and pain, she though only to strike him again and not upon how close he had drawn.

One moment Samus was spraying a dark corner between two pillars with charged plasma, and the next he was upon her. He sprang from the shadows, shaking off the fire until they were face to face. His maw hinged open, pouring rolling fire onto her head while his tail became a flurry of blows, thrusting inward with the spear-like tip.

Samus did her best to evade the blows and return fire, but her enemy was strong and fleet and vital, younger by far. The life energy of the suit vanished from its power tanks. Her breathing was heavy and ragged, her muscles felt full of molten lead. _No, it's way too soon to be getting tired! This never would've…_, she hated to finish the thought, but could not escape it: _This_ _never would've happened_ _thirty years ago_. There was no denying that her every move was slower than the one before it. She could only give ground. Seeing Samus cornered, Drooga coiled his tail around one of her ankles, and flung her to the other side of the room.

The Chozo battle armor hit with a sickening _CHUNK_. Samus did not get to her feet. Drooga waited to see what she would do, but the armor suit remained still, face down on the floor.

Finally the dragon grew impatient and began to creep forward, his head weaving slightly to and fro. Samus waited until he stood over her, then rolled over, jumped onto her feet and pounced. As the bounty hunter leapt upwards at the startled space dragon she curled in her legs and arms and head with practiced ease. An ethereal, pulsing aura of many colors surrounded her body as she collided with Drooga's chest, a human cannon ball with so much more to offer.

Drooga's cry of pain would have blown her eardrums if she hadn't been wearing her helmet. The space dragon lurched away, wings beating and tail whipping, but he could not escape the solid blows of pure energy that ruined his flesh. Samus kept jumping in midair, crashing into her enemy as he fled, as if launching off the very breeze rushing from his wings.

Finding himself cornered for the first time in his life, Drooga braced himself and did what he did best. Attack.

When the space dragon reached out to wrap his arms around her, Samus only chuckled to herself and pressed on with no idea of what would come next. With the hunter squeezed close in his arms, nerves shocked and skin burning, he let loose one final war cry and dived for the spaceport floor. Samus tried to jump loose but his bony arms held her fast.

They hit the porous cement floor hard enough to send deep cracks veining out from the point of impact. Drooga had landed belly first with the hunter under him. The crushing blow forced Samus into immobility, stopping the screw attack and draining the last of her energy reserves. Alarms sounded inside her helmet, letting her know that the power suit could bare no more damage. Her body told her much the same, sharp pain its own warning.

Drooga crawled off of her and stood back, cocking his head to the side in the manner of someone inspecting a job well done.

If this was her day to die, she decided, it would be on her feet, fighting. An eerie calm spread first into her heart, then up into her brain, and then finally the rest of her. The numbing sensation of it made it easier to force her twitching muscles into movement. It was so simple, after all. Just get up like so many times before, and shoot the thing hunched in front of her until it dies. That easy.

The dragon did not move, retaining his pose as she brought herself to standing. Samus took aim at Drooga's head. The missiles were gone, but a charged spazer beam would work just as well. She held down the trigger, watching with satisfaction as the arm cannon gathered green energy into a ball at the barrel's end.

Then the green light went out, the energy dissipating like a puff of smoke.

Samus blinked, then pulled the trigger again and found she could not move her arm. Even before she tested movement in the rest of the suit, she knew the Chozo armor had gone to sleep. It felt heavy and dead on her body where before it had pulsed with life against her skin. She would remain a statue until the armor was removed and the AI restarted. Worst still, she had no idea who or what had done this.

It was then that people began filing out of several docked space cruisers around her.

Twelve elite Federation Space Police troops in black power armor suits encircled her, rifles raised. Every man's posture was relaxed, yet calculated and precise. Their leader stepped forward, and removed his helmet—a well-built man, with bright eyes as green as envy. His face was rawboned, large teeth, massive hands, a huge frame that filled his armor well. Worm-like lips split into a grin. "Get her out of there and bag her."

The whole while Drooga stood by and watched with glinting eyes, body bleeding and bruised all over but saying nothing until the armor had been removed. "How like a white worm, shucked from its shell you are," he remarked, and made a hoarse chocking noise that passed for cooing among space dragons.

Samus ignored him and the laughter that followed. The indignity of being shut down and forcefully removed from her life's treasure was too much even for her half dead body to contain. Now naked, she found the spaceport terribly cold. As they removed the final pieces, Samus remained limp, eyes rolled up under hooded eyelids. The act worked.

"Drooga must've broken every bone in her body," one elite remarked, face turned towards his commander.

The rifles were set aside as they began to pick her body up off the floor. "Too bad," said another. "I was rather hoping to see her in action without the suit."

"We might just yet, if ya know what I mean," said the first.

"No way! She's easily old enough to be all our great grandma," said a third. "She does look good for her age though…"

"Aye, and there's other ways to have fun with a—" the first soldier's voice became a shrill shriek of agony as Samus drove her fist three inches into his crotch. The bounty hunter could've sworn he screamed louder than Ridley in his death throes.

All the other soldiers jumped behind their visors in surprise while Samus buried her foot into the armored belly of another. The man did not scream, but drooped like a bag of stones, clutching his caved in stomach and puking bile and blood into his helmet.

There were curses shouted aplenty as each man dove for his rifle. The hunter continued to beat them with her bare hands and feet, the skin on her knuckles split and sticky with blood.

At last the team leader, having stood back the entire scene with an expression of mild amusement plastered on his face, stepped forward and smacked the stock of his rifle across the back of her knees. The hunter folded to the floor immediately. He followed with a vicious blow from the butt of the gun between her shoulder blades.

Samus cried out, unable to hide the pain that exploded in her back like a nova. They were all on her now, kicking and punching as if she were a Garteen giant on liquid rage and not a hundred-year-old woman.

Just as Samus felt she would black out, they stopped. A familiar voice echoed through all that empty air and worked its way into her ears. Turning her head towards the speaker proved strangely difficult. When at last she managed to plant one cheek on the floor, she found the world had become hazy and indefinite. "You've had two casualties, Lieutenant Justin Bailey. One dead, and the other not likely to see service again for quite a while. I expect better than this," the approaching voice said, much closer now.

"I didn't make the orders. My men were careless, that's all. I'll drill them harder till they learn better. No one expected an old woman to be so strong," replied the team leader, the same Justin as the one who had stood guard outside her flat just yesterday.

"A hard lesson learned by all, yes. It appears she's still with us."

Before her vision cleared fully, Samus remembered whom the voice belonged to. Leaning over her, still wearing the same robes and the same sweet smile he had last night, was Nuvwick Syreis. "I ordered her to be taken alive and relatively whole, Justin."

"Yes sir. Relatively, sir," Justin answered.

"Any other way she would not be taken," agreed Drooga, from somewhere behind.

"Suppose you are right." Nuvwick now spoke to her, his fat face an indistinct blob of white skin, "Hello, my dearest. Ah, I can see by your look that perhaps you expected this to happen to you, and that I would be the one to do it. Knew it was a trap all along, did you? Well…who's to blame for that, yes? Desperation makes hasty fools of us all, so it does, and now you are here like planned. The public will be told of your tragic death at the hands of military security as you attempted to infiltrate this very facility. Your funeral will be a strictly private, secret affair, so as to thwart those who would desecrate your tomb. It must be a relief to finally have your admirers out of your hair."

Samus returned his gaze, clouded eyes burning with hate. With all her remaining strength, the hunter raised her upper body, propping herself up on her elbows. Her voice came out thick and slow from between her smashed lips. "You, and all the others, will die, badly." Taking a deep breath, she wound up and spat a glob of bloody mucus onto Nuvwick's left sandal.

The senator frowned, shaking his head as if despairing of a delinquent child. "Hurt her no more than it takes to secure her aboard our vessel. Make sure you bring every piece of the armor."

After Nuvwick turned and left, Justin stepped back into view. "It may be against orders, but when some old bitch kills one of my men, and reduces the other's treats to paste, I don't let it slide." Fast enough to blur, Justin brought his foot back and kicked her in the stomach as hard as he could. Samus heard herself scream and felt a roiling pain so severe that she abandoned all dignity and curled into herself, shivering. "Looks like you take your licks. Badly." The elites shared a round of cruel laughter.

Then something hard smacked across the side of her head and this time she did black out.


	3. The Shell Cracks

**Three.**

Samus struggled to stay floating a sea of oblivion. Many times she was tempted to let go, to sink and know nothing else but rest in the heavy dark waters. But it could not last. Images of Nuvwick and the others would fade in and out in front of eyes she could not close. Each time she clenched fists she did not have and vowed to stay alive long enough to finish the job. Through it all, from somewhere far away, the Chozo shaman of her last vision called out a warning she could not remember. Every now and then she would rise to the surface to hold her head above the thrashing waves and rising swells into consciousness. She regretted doing so each time except the last.

When her guards saw that she had woken up, they would have their fun. Most times this consisted of pouring containers of ice water onto her head and abdomen as she lay helpless. They watched with child-like glee as her body shuddered and shook violently. For other humans this would be discomforting in the extreme. For her, it felt like her skin was being set ablaze. She had metroid DNA bonded to her own long ago, to thank for that. Other times they would shove sharp things under her toenails or spit in her face or struck her with a closed hand.

Each time she was powerless to do anything about it. They had tied her down on the bench of her cell with so many bindings she couldn't count them all in one session of waking. Even without the straps, her body would refuse to move for long. No matter the torture, the black sea would soon reclaim her, and for that she was grateful.

Where they were taking her she could not guess. She could only confirm that her prison was a Federation space cruiser of small size traveling at warp speed. Listening to the muted drone of interstellar drives vibrating through the walls of her cell told her as much.

After enough time had passed, she could not say how long, the black sea of oblivion evaporated away, leaving her to a more natural sleep that left her feeling rested.

Upon waking up from this true sleep, Samus found herself someplace new. Four metal circlets wrapped around her hands and feet, splaying her limbs and holding them in place with anti-gravity drives that would remain in the same spot as surely as manacles imbedded in an iron slab. This way, as she hovered three feet off the ground, her entire body remained exposed.

She found herself wholly naked, but mercifully the air was warm. Across the room from her a large window spanned the wall. Someone had washed the dried blood from her face. All over her pale body stretched a patchwork of many colored bruises, all of them faded. She had been taken care of, no doubt only to allow her to survive worse. Much of her strength, what there was of it, had returned, enough to make a precursory test of her bonds. The circlets held. Samus did her best to relax. There was no use struggling. She needed stamina to remain sharp and observant for a chance to escape. It wouldn't do to tire before her fight.

The room that held her was empty now, and undoubtedly a lab. The rectangular window on the far wall opened on a small room with two rows of chairs, enough seats for plenty of observers. The floor consisted of metal grate tiles set over an intertwining matrix of cables and pipes. The walls were of a foggy blue metal, rough and strong. To her left a dais of computer consoles blinked and glowed with holographic displays and buttons of every color. To her right, facing the computers, was her armor suit, resting much as she had found it in Installation #407, set within a frosted glass holding case. The muted lighting glinted from the visor like the forlorn eye of a cyclops. Samus mouthed it a silent promise.

_Soon_.

The lab had a single entrance, a round door that opened and closed like a camera's shutter. It opened now, and Nuvwick stepped through. He waddled across the room to a folding chair set out in front of her, flicking his mole idly with his fingers. Samus had three questions to ask him. He was the kind of scum who enjoyed gloating when all chance of danger had passed. Because of this, she hoped to find him talkative and he did not disappoint.

"It has been two Federation standard cycles since we've taken you prisoner," he answered, anticipating her first question. "You needed time to heal after the rough treatment of my men. I am sorry for that. As to our location, we're on Tearus 8, a frozen ball of rock orbiting a white dwarf star at the galaxy's edge. It can't be found on any Federation map, I can assure you that. Yes. For centuries this place has been the dumping ground for things the Federation no longer wants, or," a twist of the lips, "wishes to forget."

Hearing this sent a cold trickle of fear running through her guts. Swallowing hard she moved to her second question. "What am I doing here?" Her voice was very hoarse, but the senator nodded in acknowledgement.

"The suit has remained unresponsive to any stimuli or commands we've given it over the past thirty years. With you, we can finally see how it receives commands from your body, how you and it interact. Then we will have the missing pieces to our puzzle. Also, as you are quite well aware, inside your genes are the last existing fragments of metroid DNA. Thanks to you, those marvelous creatures are extinct. It's only right that you should be the one responsible for bringing them back."

Samus thought of a new question. "And after you've taken your precious samples and recorded the readings. What then?" she asked.

"With findings gleamed here in hand, we tailor your suit for someone more…trustworthy."

"Justin Bailey is that someone," Samus said, her disgust plain.

"He's been training a long time for this. I have every faith his future career will eclipse yours. As for you, well, that depends on how things go today."

Now Samus put forth her final question, the one that she had been most eager to ask. So far Nuvwick had told her much she already knew or had inferred. But mystery lingered still over the rotten affair like fog. "Why?" she hissed. "Why did things have to be done this way? You said I was still of good use to those depending on me."

Senator Nuvwick favored her with another smile, this one sad and parental. "To help your understanding I will tell a story: Imagine a humble family of frontier settlers in the days of old. Their life is threatened by any number of enemies, enemies that pick them off one by one in the dark of the night so that they can never hope to fight back effectively. Quickly, the family is besieged, cut off. This goes on for some time until one day the head of that family comes into possession of a fine weapon, a sword say. One so terrible that it drives the wild things and the scavengers that stalk the night to route. The family sleeps safe in their home, their world at peace because the sword does its job so well."

"A generation later. The nights are not so dark as they were, and there are new additions to the family: children, estranged brothers, bandits that now bring presents and offerings instead of hatred and death. The great sword has been set aside, a heirloom of the old days, rusty with disuse because the family is strong now, and can defend their home with more practical weapons. The old weapon offends the new family members, and frightens the children—it is a strange and alien thing. Everyone is unsettled by it, hanging, as it does, in a place of honor upon the mantle. The elders decide finally to stuff it into a locker, but the heirloom remains a menace to any who would take it from its hiding place. It might cut them if they try to use it again, yes, or harm the children. This sword, this heirloom, is not wanted anymore, but the need for weapons never entirely goes away. What if that family could make something better? Weapons friendly to the new generation, something ready and willing for use. You understand now, don't you?"

Samus understood very well.

Nuvwick ran his sausage-like fingers over his brow as if this explanation tired him. A smile persisted on his smooth features, but his eyes did not join in. "The Federation officer who hired you to destroy the _Black Claw_, as well as your contact who sold you your information for that mission became quite wealthy after the incident," he continued. "They had little chance to enjoy their newfound capital, however, before each died tragically in airlock malfunctions. Yes. I hear the lieutenant's children are living well off the money they inherited."

Samus's lips quivered with rage, but she said nothing.

"How does it make you feel to learn all these years later that the crew aboard the _Black Claw_ truly was innocent, Samus?" he asked, watching for her response over an upturned nose. "That the information sold to you was false? That you were being hired to strike down delegates and scientists of both races, and not hardened killers?"

The skin of the hunter's face grew drawn and pale. Her eyes locked with his, two pools of liquid darkness staring back into his soul. Her voice remained even. "I feel glad that I killed a frigate full of pirates and traitors," she said.

Nuvwick turned oh so slightly pale himself, his mouth drooping open over his fat chins. Samus relished the response.

After half a minute the senator collected himself and continued: "Over the course of your probation you never called upon a doctor. Not once. How were we to collect tissue samples? If you disappeared, or if you claimed you had been harmed, popular public opinion would have risen against us. So we bided our time, hoping to find the secrets of Chozo weapons technology on our own, to no avail. You shrank from the public eye; we grew desperate and crafted a grand excuse for your sudden death. And here we are."

"Here we are. Desperation makes hasty fools of us all." Samus showed him an off balance smile. It was grim and devoid of any cheer or sanity.

Nuvwick gave her a troubled sidelong glance.

"You and all your pets are going to die here—be buried here," she said.

"Now Ms Aran. This is no time to retreat into idle fantasy—"

"With on own hands."

Nuvwick turned and left her there.

* * *

As she waited for things to get underway, Samus cycled through her memories of the recent past. She placed herself back at the appeal and watched them deny her the one thing left in the universe that mattered to her. She pictured the pirate senators making deals with the other senators, taking their revenge with an underhand. She remembered Justin Bailey and how his men beat her. She thought of Drooga. At last came Nuvwick and his revelation of just how she could serve the Federation in her final years. She thought of all this and more, letting the rage build within her, boiling into her skin, mixing with her pure hatred for them all and what they stood for and allowing it to harden there. It was a shell that would protect her from what was to come, and if the opportunity came to slip free, would guide her for what needed doing.

The VIPs walked in first, shuffling down the two rows of seats until they found their reserved spot behind the window. This was a way to demoralize her further, reducing her to entertainment. More than half of the VIPs were space pirates, the rest humans and a few other races. All of them were important. Senators, military brass, scientists, and crime lords, among other things. A collection of jeering faces and probing eyes. Here were the "others" Nuvwick had promised, to who she could be of the most use.

Next came the chief human senator himself, accompanied by two elite guards in their jet power armor. This time his chair was a cushioned item set back by the dais of consoles. The two guards took place at the two opposite corners of the room. Samus recognized them both as Justin's men.

Finally the technicians and scientists themselves came in. There were three of them. One surprised the hunter greatly.

Shuffling to the consoles was a thin man wearing a jumpsuit and white lab coat in place of the formal business wear from before. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes bright white and shocked as he took furtive glances at her exposed form. The eyebrows below his receding hairline were quite bushy. He was the man from the bus; she had met him on her way to the appeal. Earlier he had tried to express a lifetime's gratitude for being rescued as a child. Now he looked at a loss, ready to bolt. But he did not run. He placed himself on the dais and began manipulating the controls, giving her the barest of glances now that he had his computers to tend to. His mouth became a thoughtful frown.

Nuvwick announced they were to begin by taking skin samples. The other two white coats stepped forward, wielding what appeared to be large cheese graters. Each man took their place behind her legs, placing the graters against her calves. The metal was ice cold. With all the tenderness of a lumberjack debarking a log of wood they raked the metal across her legs, stripping away skin in long, bloody strips of white and pink, and carefully placed each sliver of flesh into a sterile iron-glass sample dish. Samus could feel the sweat rolling down her face. She held her screams of pain inside, refusing to so much as bite her lip. By the time they were finished a wide puddle of blood crawled wider on the floor below her, feed by thin, fast flowing scarlet rivers running down her feet.

The VIPs were relaxed and in good spirits, sitting in their climate controlled suite. The hunter could see many white smiles flash and faces bright with interest.

Next they brought on the blood taking. Five syringes were used, each as wide as half of a man's hand. This didn't hurt nearly as much as the skin removal, but Samus feared the weakness and hazy vision that accompanied severe blood loss.

The man with the busy eyebrows kept his eyes glued to the glowing consoles as if they were the only things in the world to see.

For the grand finale the white coats produced a laser scalpel, a device that resembled a flashlight in shape with a multi-angled attachment like an all-in-one kitchen tool. Now she would have to scream, Samus knew, for they were going to cut her apart. The eyes of the VIPs glistened with glee, beady and black across the room.

The shorter technician placed the scalpel on her left side. He took a moment to make adjustment on the device and then turned it on.

The laser hardly hurt at all, and while Samus didn't have to scream for her captors, the eerie sense of loss and heat disturbed her more than everything else that had come before. Two green lasers rayed out from separate protrusions on the scalpel. They aligned into a broad fork, which the white coat used to remove an angled strip of flesh from just below her ribcage. There was little bleeding. The removed skin came off as a rectangle, a lot like jerky the hunter thought. On the underside clung a layer of muscle and a trace of fat tissue.

It must have been anticlimactic for the scum sitting in attendance that she didn't beg or cry out, but Nuvwick seemed pleased, his face greasy in the green glow, his modest grin transformed into a leer.

One technician dunked the strip into a bath of solution to keep it alive while the other brought forth the torso piece of Samus's armor. Wires ran along the floor from the computer consoles to plug into the chest piece. Samus realized these men had worked with her suit before, perhaps for their entire careers. Was the man with the eyebrows also an old hand on this project? Samus thought yes, but he had looked too surprised when entering to have known what was to happen here ahead of time. The mystery man had so wanted to thank her on the bus, and struggled to do so not just from shyness but from guilt as well. Now he was simply doing as he was told, surviving.

As the seconds dragged on for hours, Samus soon found herself remembering the dream she had had the night of her capture. There had been Chozo in that dream, and death. A shaman had looked her in the eyes and warned her of hidden dangers. The hunter gave a rueful frown to no one as she thought about her blithe dismissal of that warning. _Study close their hollow shells that you may divine their true natures_, he had said. That bothered her still. Nothing about this had been hidden from her—only what she, in her time of need, chose not to see. Perhaps that was what he had meant, or perhaps it was only a random nightmare. Somehow, Samus thought she was wrong on both counts. So what was left to reveal?

"Now, we will see the armor come alive as never before in all these years!" Nuvwick gasped as her removed, still alive flesh was placed into suit. Once set upon the correct location where it had touched when still a part of her body, the man with the eyebrows fluttered his hands over the controls.

For more than five minutes no one spoke or moved. The white coat bent over the monitors, frowning.

"What is it Biner?" Nuvwick asked of the man with the eyebrows.

"No reaction to the presence of tissue," Biner answered. "It looks like the Chozo technology is too smart to be fooled like this."

Nuvwick startled his audience by stamping his fat foot on the floor with a metallic bang that crashed throughout the lab. "Well then, what in the hell do we do? What do I pay you people for! Can we cut off an entire limb and place it inside? Will we get readings then?"

Biner shook his head, still frowning. "From what I'm seeing here, no. The suit works as a whole system, or not at all. Much like an electric circuit, it has to be complete." Upon seeing Nuvwick's face turn red, he quickly added, "The weapons and all modular upgrades can be locked. All she'll be able to do is walk about within the field."

"Do it," Nuvwick spat, making an exasperated waving gesture with his hands.

"Can I have my own back?" Samus asked. She nodded to the dismembered flesh oozing inside the armor. To her surprise, Nuvwick nodded in agreement.

They placed the sample back into her side and released her from the circlets at gunpoint. With each piece of armor they placed on her, Samus vowed anew that they would live to regret it.

The last piece secured and the armor whole once more, the elites and white coats backed away. A field of sputtering energy that resembled white noise on a communications line appeared in a circle around the bounty hunter, who sat on the floor, unable to move until her suit was switched on. A mane of wires emerged from the back of her neck, ready to transmit the secrets of Chozo design. The force shield did not cut the cords, they were specially designed for that. The shield lowered visibility, but not so much that the VIPs couldn't see her. She most certainly still saw them.

"Switch her on. And be ready. Weapons or no, she's dangerous," Nuvwick stated, and picked at his mole once.

Samus could see no way out. As badly as she wanted to escape, they left her no openings. If they shut her down once, how she still didn't know, they would do it again while she remained caged.

The combat visor blinked to life, the HUD lights turning on all at once. True to the white coat's words, all weapons and upgrades remained inactive.

"Are we getting readings?" Nuvwick asked.

"Yes," Biner said. "We're getting everything." The audience buzzed with hushed conversation. Their money had not gone to waste after all.

Samus was on her feet and testing the shield with her hand. Solid as a wall of stone. It was then that a text message scrolled over her visor.

--I can't bluff for much longer. Hit the force shield with a charged wave beam. When you escape, go to the command center just outside the entrance. Move quickly, they will try to block off your escape. Please forgive me.--

That was all. The message didn't have to be signed for her to know who the writer was. With a smile so cutting and cold it would have terrified her captors if they could see it, Samus watched as each beam and upgrade came online. Better still, a small supply of missiles, super missiles, and super bombs transmitted into her stores. Gathering the wires trailing from her neck into one fist, Samus put the bundle to the barrel of her arm cannon and with a charged blast of the power beam severed them all in a plume of sparks.

The reaction from the VIPs was immediate. A senator and his mistress were thrown to the floor as the rest rushed the viewing suite's exit, screaming and baying like a pack of dogs fleeing a forest fire. The two guards in the lab raised their rifles and fired, useless against the shielding still around Samus. The hunter ignored them, punching the barrier with charged wave beam shots. Each hit lessened the amount dancing white specks until only a few spots danced in frenzy around her.

"What is this? Why aren't you hitting the kill switch?" Nuvwick screamed at Biner.

"I'm doing all I can," he replied at the top of his lungs.

"Here! What are you doing?" The senator produced a pistol from the depths of his silken robes. "This won't do at all. No, no. No."

Samus's savior spun around on the dais to face the senator and, seeing the gun, threw his arms over his face in panic. "Please—"

The pistol made two coughing noises, a wave of heat smoked from the barrel. The man with the busy eyebrows fell to the floor. With a furious cry Samus fired twice more at the shield and heard the _zzzaccc_ sound of its collapse.

Standing closer to the bounty hunter than the exit, Nuvwick gestured for the soldiers to stand back. From somewhere in the recesses of her mind, instinct cried out to her, warning her. Samus took two steps forward and stopped, gun arm taking careful aim.

"I don't need an army to stop _you_," the senator hissed. A hand lifted to his right cheek in a nervous twitch. And now Samus saw the smoldering pitch eyes of the dream shaman, boring through her in waking life with all the sorrow of a vanished race.

_Study close their hollow shells_, he said, and was gone. It had taken her a while, but Samus saw his point at last.

The hunter's left arm lifted, the electric rope of the grappling beam snaking out towards the senator. The electrical tool homed in and latched onto the mole on Nuvwick's right cheek, or rather the metal below it. Samus snapped her arm back, retrieving the grappling beam.

The senator let out a long wail of pain. He sank to his knees, hands clutching the wound in his face, gouts of blood pouring out between the fingers.

In her left gauntlet Samus held a small dome of surgical grade metal. A switch sat at the apex of its curved surface. She took a second to scan it. "A subatomic transmitter, capable of broadcasting an undetectable, unblockable signal. The algorithms it transmitted shut down my suit, and have now been copied into my database, and locked out." She crushed the transmitter in her fist and let the dead wad of metal drop to the ground. "A brilliant trick, senator. But one that will not serve you twice."

Samus stepped forward but was halted by a stream of blaster fire. One of the soldiers stood in her way, raking her armor with fire as his comrade carried the sobbing senator through the exit. All the VIPs were long gone.

"I'm more than enough fer you ta handle," he said. Samus's power tanks were only a quarter full, forcing her to dive for cover behind the console platform. The veteran elite sprayed the computers with fire, snuffing out their lights with lethal efficiency. "Come out and maybe I can make your death quick!"

The hunter rolled out from behind the dais and did the last thing he expected—she rushed him head on. She was hit by only a spattering of fire by the time that she reached him. Taking the elite's gun in her hands, Samus lifted one boot off the ground and drove it hard into the man's knee, reversing the joint's direction with a wet snap. He fell on his back, gasping in shock and pain, releasing his rifle. Samus strolled around to his side. "I-I never. Hurt…" Without looking at his sweat soaked face and wide, white eyes, Samus lifted her foot once again and buried her metal boot deep into the soldier's throat, holding it there until he died.

With that done, the hunter found Biner lying face down and gently rolled him onto his back. There were two charred holes just below his heart. A quick scan with her visor told her he was almost dead. The man's eyes were glossy and dim, a bubble of blood popped from his mouth as his jaws worked silently.

Samus removed her helmet and cradled him in her lap. The hunter wanted to tell him that she was sorry, that he owed her nothing, that he was a fool for sacrificing himself. "Thank you," was all she could think to say. The man nodded, eyes trained on her lips. Then a final rattling breath seeped from his chest and his pulse skipped a beat and stopped.

A single tear trailed down Samus's cheek like a scar of crystal. She left him there, replaced her helmet, and sprinted for the exit.

The hunter soon found herself in a long hallway that forked straight ahead and to the right. A few spatters of blood told her which way Nuvwick and the others had left, but the other way was more important now. Samus picked the path to the right. It ended with one exit, but two security auto turrets. Close together, it was a simple matter of catching both guns at once with the same missiles.

Just as Biner had promised, through the door she found the command center. Why it had been left so lightly guarded she did not know.

Much like the lab in shape and build, the chamber whirred and hummed with computer life. A single technician manned control panels that spanned most of the room. When he saw the metal clad bounty hunter bound up to his station he reached for a large red button, making his last mistake. The beam shot caught him in the right temple, reducing his brainpan to an ashtray. The hunter was in no mood for delays.

Scanning the research station's system her Chozo computer hacked its way to the root drives, searching for and sorting all the data she required into neat packets. Samus now knew the reason for their hasty retreat, and why they had left such an important facility open for the taking. There was but one spaceship on the entire planet, the one they had all come in on. As long as they escaped, she would be marooned on this frozen world. Only one person, it would be a trivial matter to send a small Federation army to secure the facility and reclaim their prize. But in their haste and cowardice, they had forgotten how easily her suit's internal computer could bludgeon its way through lesser systems.

With a sigh of satisfaction, Samus initiated the self-destruct protocol. Main power rerouted to the power core, building up for the fusion reaction that would reduce everything, all their data, and her tissue samples to so much radiated debris. Soft emergency lighting filled in for the regular thing, the Tearus Research facility became a world of shadows and half-light. Over the security monitors the bounty hunter watched blast doors close all over the facility. She could see the VIPs cut off from their escape route, locked into what looked like a mess hall, separated from their rear guard of Bailey and his men, who were trapped in an adjoining corridor. Even though every soldier wore his helmet, Samus could spot Justin by his posture, the way he remained in charge, signaling in short, sharp gestures his commands. She saw no sign of Nuvwick. But did it really matter? Unless he had been very quick, quick enough to reach the other end of the building by now, he was as stranded as everyone else. Ahh, but he might have help, and that was a sore worry. Only one way to be sure

The only starship on the entire planet, at her remote command, ignited its engines and flew out the spaceport, cruising out of orbit on autopilot. Refilling the suit's energy tanks from a nearby charging station, Samus suppressed a shudder. It didn't bear thinking about what would happen if the senator had reached that ship in time.


	4. White Storm

**Four**.

The hallway intersection was well barricaded. Shaped like a T, the intersection sat about thirty yards from the cafeteria entrance if she kept going straight. The corridor that ran away to the left had been completely blocked by a thick but hastily constructed wall, which consisted of the same utilitarian furniture that filled the entire facility. Three more barriers, the height of her waist, blocked the forward path. No one was in sight.

Samus had to tilt her lips in cool amusement at this. Sure, she could bull her way through, power dashing, but where would be the fun in that? If anyone deserved the full show, it was Justin Bailey.

Her side itched like fire burned, joined by its distant relative: stabbing pain. It was a good sign, her suit repairing the damage to her body just as it repaired itself. Days would pass before she could be whole, but the self-destruct protocol only gave her forty seven minutes before detonation.

Switching briefly to her X-ray visor, Samus counted the men waiting behind their makeshift bunker. Fifteen skeletons glowed ghost white, ethereal clouds of mist clinging to the bones—the way flesh appeared at this end of the electromagnetic spectrum.

No point in keeping them waiting. Samus launched herself into a great horizontal leap forward, rolling through the air with limbs tucked in. She traveled in a smooth upwards arc, as much as the ceiling would allow, reaching the apex just over the second barrier. The elites opened fire with their precision assault rifles. In a second her body was a swarm of bursting plasma ordinance, but none of that mattered for she had activated the screw attack, producing a field of electro magnetic energy that pushed her against gravity.

The hunter crashed down behind the third barrier, killing the soldier who was there to brake her fall. The men were the most numerous here, and Samus found herself almost knocked to her feet by the concentration of fire. She twisted in a circle, firing her small supply of rockets off with what she hoped would appear to be wild desperation. The severed wires that hung from her helmet whipped and coiled as she moved like gorgon's hair.

The elite Federation Army unit's power armor suits could take a lot of punishment. Three missiles to the chest, four charged spazer beam shots to the waist—she couldn't crack through their suits quickly enough. Head shots were out of the question amongst the thrashing and jostle of close quarters combat. Bailey's men, to their credit, moved quickly, giving each other several feet of space when they could spare it. They maintained a loose formation, many still firing from around cover, prevented explosions from harming more than one man at a time.

Then, when they expected her to be softened up, they closed. The innermost fighters ran circles around her, sidestepping her piercing green lasers that cut like knives of light, dodging the rockets that shattered their bones and scattered their flesh.

At last it grew too much. Samus fell to the floor, arms raised in a futile attempt to shield herself from the rain of plasma bullets. They had her trapped, the elites saw. They stopped their circle strafing. With all caution forgotten, they packed in, eager for the one kill that could make their lives. A few withdrew their high frequency combat knifes, eager to cut off a souvenir. The hunter realized that she had seen these gleaming, dancing blades of white somewhere before, in a dark place much like this one, whistling through the air, clenched in black fists.

A few of the knives began to strike her, metal screeching on metal. Only one slid through the armor, stabbing her right side. It didn't feel too deep—like all the other blows that fell on her now, it was a wild and furtive strike, too sloppy to do much real damage.

From somewhere a ways off the hunter heard Justin shouting at his men to finish the job. Samus retreated into the morph ball, her energy tanks half depleted, but the assault continued.

A frenzied shout of victory rushed from the throats of the soldiers as many of them dropped to a kneeling position and continued the hammer the deep red and purple ball that was Samus Aran.

She had had enough. As the taste of her blood sweetened in their mouths, Samus dropped the power bomb.

Only the elites closest to her saw what was coming. They shot to their feet, some shouting warnings, others scrambling past and over their brothers in arms. The bomb's primer ticked off its last measured second and exploded, filling the entire junction with yellow explosive power.

The men caught at ground zero disintegrated. The soldiers with power armor suits in pristine condition survived a second longer, only to feel their bodies vaporize to red steam inside their suits.

When it was over, Samus emerged and rose to her feet. Little of the last minute fortifications remained. Charred suits of armor lay split open, sizzling and smoking all about her. She had seen troop carrier crashes that looked prettier than this.

Directed plasma bullets stitched across her back, spiraling her around in alarm. From the darkness of the hallway ahead of her, dark, bulky figures sprang, living shadows. Three men had survived, far back enough from the explosion's perimeter to have escaped with moderate damage.

All three launched another volley that staggered her, draining her suit's life. Samus fired her last missile. It caught the first solider square in the flexible connecting material that covered his neck. The explosion took off his head and left shoulder. The other two sped past his gushing corpse without stopping.

Samus fired again and again with the spazer, not bothering to charge her shots. The second man was caught in the legs, first stripping his knees of their armor, then removing the limbs altogether. The nameless elite dropped to the floor in an odd sideways twirl. He screamed and bled and still the last soldier rushed on.

She could see the white triangle patch of a lieutenant upon his chest. It was Bailey, come forward to fight now that all his underlings were slain. His war cry was hoarse but constant, his carbine spat fire without ceasing. The shots made a harsh sighing sound as they burned into her suit, creating wet ash-colored burn marks that joined the hundreds of others already in place. Samus returned fire with a charged shot to his chest. It looked as if he would stumble from the blow, but Justin retained his footing at the last second and continued his charge.

Bailey closed the distance, ten feet, five feet, two. Samus knew that in his mind he saw her not as she was now, but as she had been before: a gray and shriveled woman of eighty plus years, naked and cringing at his boots, long hair draped over her down turned face like a silver death shroud.

Justin raised the rifle over his head with both arms, close enough for Samus to see his eyes through his shaded visor. They were filled with savage glee. He brought the carbine down, the rifle butt aimed to go through her visor. Samus's left hand snapped up and caught it. The arm cannon pressed into his belly and fired a full spazer charge.

There came a wet _splorch_ sound and Justin's eyes opened wider than Samus thought possible.

Bailey sank to his knees, then to the floor on his side. "Ehk…ehk…ehhhk…" was all that driveled from the helmet's speaker. Samus looked down and noted that his weakened armor had absorbed most of the point blank shot's force, letting just enough through to cut open his abdomen. Her armor, from her chest to her knees, was slick with blood. Coils of purplish blue rope slithered out from the ragged hole in his suit, followed by glistening pink sacks of tissue. The lieutenant's black-gloved hands weakly tried to push his lost organs back inside before his true green eyes rolled up into his head and he became still.

Samus checked and confirmed that the elite with the amputated legs had died of shock, then continued on her way to the cafeteria where the VIPs waited.

The blast door loomed twelve feet high in the dim backup lighting, sealing her once-captors in, away from escape. Her computer scanned the access panel to the right to give her clearance. The door, little more than a two-foot thick slab of metal, lifted back into the ceiling, unseen mechanisms creaking with disuse. The blast door remained open only long enough for her to slip through, before settling closed behind her with a resounding bang.

Rows of long tables lined with benches filled the cafeteria. The furnishings were uninspired and dull like the rest of Tearus Facility. Bunched in front of the blast door opposite of her, like one of Bailey's futile barriers, stood the men and women that had come to see her torn apart and killed for their cause.

The pitiful crowd turned as one, lights of hope brightening their eyes as they beheld the armored form staggering calmly towards them in the faded light. Then Samus drew close, stopping under one of the few light bulbs still working so that they could see her.

Upon spotting the red helmet set between the round shoulder mounted storage units, the metal skin that looked almost alive, the long green barrel of the cannon, the lights of hope extinguished from their eyes, their shouts of joy died in a whimper within their throats.

Samus counted to see that everyone was here. They were, minus Nuvwick. She aimed her cannon and began to fire.

Some stood and meet their fate, flat eyed and unflinching, and some grew angry, screaming curses and threatening punishment they could not deliver, and some got on their knees and begged, crying, or displayed pictures of children and grandchildren. A few even rushed her as Bailey had done, ready to pound her Chozo armor with flabby, well manicured fists. Each one she cut down with the cold steady hand of an expert craftsman applying years of experience. She cycled through each of her beams as she finished things, save for the ice beam. That one she withheld for later.

The Hunter did not speak to them as she worked. Nerves fried, bones were crushed, skin and fat melted to slough off the bone. She had learned long ago that as a bounty hunter, one had to be thorough.

Then it was over. Her body was numb, even her mangled sides. As numb as her heart. That was best, she thought, for this was no time for feeling.

* * *

Drooga waited for her in the eaves of the arboretum—a grand domed indoor garden set just beside the spaceport, a richly pleasant area that would form for visitors a favorable first impression of Tearus Facility. Enormous trees from several star systems grew in a rough circle at the center of the dome, rooted in a floor of dirt where moss, various ferns, and shrubs grew into a carpet of green life. Everything worked to give the chamber the feeling of a shrine to nature. Tree branches spread to conceal the ceiling and the rafters that that lined it, from which hung great sunlamps that bathed the trees with life giving light.

While the hunter stood in the perpetual shade the many trees cast onto the ground, the space dragon dived. Samus was ready for this, morphing into a ball and rolling out of the way.

Coming out of it, the hunter looked up to see Drooga across the central clearing, resting light on a large branch halfway up the biggest tree. His sulfur eyes glistened wetly with menace as he spoke in his grating voice. "It would have been easier for you to die in the labs, O my sister. Now I'll be forced to shred you from toe to chin."

"You're only protecting Nuvwick? Don't you care about all the others?" she asked, buying time. The fight hadn't even begun yet, and already she felt exhausted. Had she always tired so rapidly?

Drooga chuckled. "They don't pay me a royal sum as my dear senator does to keep me at his side. Besides, you've seen to it that their accounts are settled, haven't you now?"

The clock was ticking down, less than thirty minutes until detonation. Looking at the space dragon now, perched on his branch, smiling with his flesh eater teeth, she could see no wounds remaining from their last tryst. With total energy reserves less than forty percent, she knew this fight must end quickly if she had any chance to escape. The last question begged of her: how?

"I'm tired of talking with an over-grown maggot," she said, angling her gun arm to point at the dragon. "Come down here and die finishing what you started."

"As you wish, gray Chozo worm!" Drooga descended on pulsing wings, arms outstretched and tail pointed. Samus jumped up to meet him, firing a charged power beam into his torso. At the last second her grappling beam snaked out from her left wrist and caught hold of a low branch. Drooga reached for empty air as Samus swung away to the side.

Switching off the grappling beam, the hunter turned in mid air and launched one of the super missiles she had been saving just for the dragon. Her aim was for the bones that supported his wings. If she could blast them off, or at least make them sore, Drooga would be forced into a ground battle. There was no time to plan anything beyond that.

The missile hit, causing Drooga to shrill in pain. They fell into the same dance they had danced in the spaceport on Neotamnna, except this time she had things to swing from and cover to take behind the tree trunks. Samus kept constantly on the move, stopping briefly to aim and fire only when her foe had lost sight of her. Drooga grew more and more enraged, breathing fire until even the most stalwart tree bark was ablaze.

It was her sixth super missile that did the trick, launched as she leaned out from a hallow in the trunk of the smallest tree. The green tipped ordinance struck the thick bone that lanced through the top of his right wing. There came a great _snap_ as the wing bent into an odd angle. Drooga slammed onto the cultivated forest floor, shrieking and frothing at the mouth, his eyes rolling in his skull. Samus swung out to meet him.

From here on in things would happen on the ground. It would be quick and dirty, as all fights to the death tended to be. Samus was in poor shape, all the swinging and quick movements had opened the wounds in her sides further. Blood pooled in the bottom of her boots. Fatigue gnawed at her muscles, her heart rattled like a living thing caged within her chest.

Samus did her best to swallow the rising fear that her body would give out when she needed it the most. That was the fear of old women, she chided herself, and she was above such as they and their ordinary fears. The hunter bit her lip and pressed the attack.

Upon seeing her appear on the ground before him, Drooga came forth across the clearing with the ease of a single motion, the speed of a basic reflex. Samus unloaded two more super missiles into his chest. In return Drooga bathed her in fire, and then their hard bodies met with a resounding smack.

They went down together in a blurring whirlwind of thrashing, twisting limbs. Above them the fires set by Drooga's breath had spread to the top of every tree, creating a halo of flame. Burning leaves fell, twirling and winking through the air like fireflies. Several sunlamps cracked from the intense heat, going out one by one, leaving the blaze to illuminate the darkened arboretum with a blood red glow.

They rolled, struggling, until Drooga pinned Samus under his body. The Hunter's arm cannon pumped wave beam shots into the space dragon's shredded mass with the smooth rhythm of a piston. Drooga dipped his long snout down to clamp his jaws around her helmet but at the last minute the hunter jerked to the side. The fangs sunk into the suit's metal shoulder, pierced it, and sunk into the flesh below. Samus gave a cry of pain.

Drooga withdrew his mouth to attempt another bite when she feebly raised her gun arm and caught Drooga's left eye with a super missile. The yellow eyeball was gone, the eye socket collapsed into a mass of splintered bone and skin.

The space dragon reared back, roaring loud enough to shake the scorched limbs of the burning trees. "My eye! May the stars damn you, my EYE!"

Samus attempted to get to her feet but was knocked down by Drooga's claws. A swipe across the chest, his talons carved grooves into the Chozo armor. Her suit screamed in pain and Samus's body screamed with it. Her head swam so much that she could do nothing as the dragon's tail wrapped around her right leg and lifted her from the earthen floor. The feeling of suspension was enough to warn her of what came next. Samus let her body go limp.

Drooga slammed the metal clad woman over his head and into the ground behind him. Not letting go, he picked her up by his tail again and dashed her into the nearest tree trunk, savoring the wooden _thud_ before throwing his entire body into a third swing. This time he let her go, noting how her limbs dangled limp, as if boneless.

Samus hit the ground hard enough, face first, to make a man-shaped dent in the soil three inches deep.

"Have the decency to die," Drooga croaked as he cupped the ruin of his crushed eye socket.

The space dragon lumbered towards her still body. Once again Samus allowed herself a small smirk. Here Drooga was, seconds away from victory and still making the same dumb mistakes.

Being flung about by his tail might have rattled a few teeth loose, but it also worked to clear her head marvelously, so that when Drooga flipped her over this time she was ready.

Drooga turned Samus over onto her back, expecting her unconscious, or dead, and found the green cannon pointed right for his head. He let out an involuntary gasp of surprise, his second mistake. Her last super missile flew straight and true into his maw and exploded there, coating the back of his throat with fire. Sensitive membranes flew apart and blood poured down his jaw, out between his needle teeth into countless streams. And still he came on.

Before Samus had a chance to force her body into motion, Drooga held her in his claws. Mad with pain and fury he placed her sideways into his jaws and bit down as hard as he could. A few teeth broke, making small, fragile sounds. The rest stabbed through, the armor too low on power to resist them now. Samus felt herself run through by countless teeth, and screamed to keep the rising black waters at bay.

The upper jaw moved away for the next chomp. Samus saw her own blood on his teeth. _He's going to eat me. He's really going to win by eating me! _she thought when the idea struck her. An idea as wonderful as it was clear in her mind. She laughed out loud, but Drooga did not hear. He took a second bite and tasted nothing by air. He also found himself unable to fully shut his mouth.

Changed into the morph ball, the maru mari as it was truly named, she slid down his snout like a pinball in its track and buried herself into his throat.

Drooga reached a new level insanity, this time fueled by terror. He clawed his at his neck, slammed his head against anything nearby, and still he could not dislodge the cold ball from his throat. Snug inside, Samus could feel Drooga's fear in his blood as it pulsed in the veins all about her. Silently, she armed the power bomb and released it just behind the place were his jaw hinged on his skull.

The bomb stayed glued to where it had been set, then exploded a few seconds later.

When the fireworks were over Samus rolled away from Drooga's beheaded body, which thrashed its limbs and whipped its tail in brainless effort. The Hunter came to her feet next to his jawbone, considered taking it for a prize, and then thought better of it. The top half of his skull was nowhere to be seen, shattered into a million pieces around the great dome.

Samus looked down upon herself and saw that she wasn't in much better shape. The bite wound in her gun arm's shoulder bled freely, as did the two rows of teeth holes across her abdomen. Burns and claw marks marred the armor's once spotless skin.

More than anything she wanted to lie down, to sleep. The black sea beyond waking life was calling to her, its waters cold yet strangely relaxing as it lapped against her ankles.

She took a step forward.

Then another. And another.

Over and over she told herself that she would not die, could not die. Not when there was so much left to do. As she walked towards the spaceport, the ebony waters receded little by little until they were gone.

The spaceport was a dark cavern bored into solid ice and supported by metal beams. The port sat empty, except for a few random crates and drums. It didn't take her long to find him.

"Come out, senator Nuvwick," Samus said. "I can see in thermal, remember?"

The pudgy man strode out of the gloom, wearing his practiced air of confident serenity like an old shoe, a feat under these circumstances. The hole in his right cheek spread out like a red starfish. His robes sighed as they dragged along the smooth floor. They must not have been very warm, for the senator shivered at regular intervals. His face was as placid as a pond on a planet with no wind. Seeing this almost made Samus feel something. Just what, she could not say.

"Then Drooga is dead," he stated, stopping ten feet from her. "What of Justin?"

Samus dragged her fingers across her gore splattered armor and held the bloodied fingers out. "I believe some of this is his, if you would like to take a sample."

Nuvwick's stonewall face broke suddenly, his lips began to shake and his eyes watered. "He was as a son to me. I need not ask of what befell the others, do I, foul murderess?"

Samus brought her cannon to bear. "There's been only one murder here, the rest fallen prey. I've one more to catch. Then this hunt will be finished."

"You are mad!" the senator spat. He waved one arm at the empty expanse around them. "You have sent away our one ship, killing us both! It'll be weeks before a deep space patrol responds to the distress signal sent out by the self destruct protocol."

Samus didn't respond in words. Rather, she began to charge a shot. Nuvwick sank to his knees, but regained his peaceful exterior so fast it made her skin crawl.

"Give me a moment. There's nothing to be gained from killing me now," he pleaded with a solemn tone, hands raised palms up.

"I disagree."

"Listen. You have a plan to survive this catastrophe, I know you do. I can see that your injuries are grave. Yes. Let us help each other survive until a ship arrives. Then you can kill me if you wish."

Samus said nothing. The gathering sphere of yellow energy dissipated from the cannon's barrel. Nuvwick was visibly encouraged by this.

"Or, if you let me live…I can find many ways to reward you."

Samus's voice was flat. "You can't pay me enough to buy your life back, Nuvwick. It's far too late for that."

The senator grew a shade paler. Despite the chill in the air, he began to sweat. Outside, the winds of Tearus 8 howled around them, the sound filtering through the walls in a constant drone.

"Still sore over Biner's death are you? I can see your point. But there's more than just money I can place into your hands. How about an official pardon from the Federation? You could be famous again, a hero! Or you can remain officially dead, free to seek a new life in anonymity. Whichever you want, you can have." And now he lowered his voice to a whisper, as if afraid some eavesdropper would hear. "There's something that is better than all of this, too. Yes. Something most precious to you above all else. You see, not all the Chozo are dead."

The hunter strode forward, almost running, grabbed Nuvwick by his collar and lifted his terrified face to her visor. "What?"

"I-I said not all Chozo are dead. We have a few, yes, very few but alive in another abandoned facility like this one, on another planet. The last! We've kept them there for research purposes, but otherwise unharmed. Even now they sit in their metal cells, waiting for their savior, _you_, to deliver them! A chance to recover your—"

Samus threw him back to the ground and walked a few steps away. She stood with her back turned to the senator, her shoulders rising and falling with her labored breathing. Nuvwick did not dare to move from where she had left him, frozen in terror. He had misspoke somehow, said something he shouldn't. A buzz hummed in the air, pricking his skin and nostrils, causing the hairs on the back of his neck to rise. It was the kind of atmospheric change that signaled a storm's coming.

When at last Samus Aran spoke, her voice broke with emotion. "All that can be done for those poor souls I have done," she said, and pointed back towards the way she had arrived. Back towards a mountain of cooling corpses and ash. Below them the ground rumbled. The fusion cores below had begun their final cascade towards critical mass, the death rattles of Tearus Facility.

The Hunter wheeled to face Nuvwick once more, arm cannon charging. The senator's eyes widened, much like Bailey's had at the end. His hands came up, fingers splayed, to shield his gaping mouth and sloping chest. She knew. He didn't know or care how, but she knew!

"Please! I don't want to die! Just let me go and I'll make everything all right!" he squealed.

From somewhere inside the arm cannon an unseen gear shifted with a dry _click_. Sections of the cannon separated from the rest, expanding outwards while others settled in. The energy collected at the cannon's tip changed from yellow to icy blue, a cold light that gleamed deep in the suit's expressionless visor.

A dark pool of moisture spread on the front of Nuvwick's robes. Spittle and mucus trailed in thick streamers from his quaking mouth and nose. "No, please, no nononoooo!"

"Yes."

Samus fired.

The ice beam hit his knees, spreading to his groin and legs first, then swallowing his bowels. The all-consuming cold ripped his life heat away, bursting tissue as water within crystallized and expanded into ice. Nuvwick shrieked and shrieked, hands clawing at his eyes, drawing blood, trying to escape the agony.

The ice stopped halfway up his rib cage. It took a minute for him to die. Samus stood, unmoving, and watched his face until it was over.

Then everything roared as the fusion cores below went up in a nuclear explosion. Every structure in the facility seemed to buckle and tear itself apart at once. To Samus it sounded like thunder.

She couldn't remember when she started running—only that now she ran at top speed for the staging exit. The whole world went white.

* * *

Samus opened her eyes to a world of ice and rock, worn smooth by ceaseless winds. Where Drooga had opened her suit the cold seeped in to burn her. Nothing burns like the cold, after all. The sky was clear and full of stars shining without warmth.

Turning herself over revealed new worlds of pain. It was hard to move. Her body was a sock filled with shards of glass. She set her back against the sheer wall of a stone cliff, the one that must have stopped her flight. Many yards away, below her a crater filled with twisted metal and fire spread out for what must have been a mile. It looked as if some mythical god had carved out a brazier in Tearus eight and set it ablaze in his honor.

The Hunter watched until every flame died in the sunken bowl of earth and then she watched the stars.

Her eyelids grew heavier than boulders of lead. She thought it might be a good idea to take a nap at last. Sleep would do her the greatest good.

Samus didn't feel hungry, and she didn't feel much pain anymore, or much of her body at that.

That left the cold to worry about. What if she froze? But what did a metroid care about cold? she reminded herself. Sure it hurt, sure it felt awful, but it didn't kill. It made one sleep.

She decided. She would sleep in the cold, and when a ship came along to investigate they would find her lying here and would take her onboard and thaw her out. And then…there was no point in thinking that far ahead.

Samus gave over to the pleasure of not-moving, not-thinking. The surrender was sweet. And just before her eyes closed for good, she could spot her people, the Chozo, and the shaman with eyes of liquid tar, walking over the horizon to greet her as their own.

**The End.**


End file.
